Audiovisual training effects for Japanese children learning English/r/-/l/

In this study, the effects of audiovisual training were examined for Japanese children learning the English/r/-/l/contrast. After 10 audiovisual training sessions, participants' improvement in English/r/-/l/identification in audiovisual, visual-only and audio-only conditions was assessed. The results demonstrated that Japanese children significantly improved in their English/r/-/l/identification accuracy in all three conditions. Although there was no significant modality effect on identification accuracy at pre test, the participants improved their identification accuracy in the audiovisual condition significantly more than in the audio-only condition. The improvement in the audiovisual condition was not significantly different from that in the visual-only condition. These results suggest that Japanese children can improve their identification accuracy of the English/r/-/l/contrasts using each of visual and auditory modalities, and they appear to improve their lipreading skills as much as audiovisual identification. Nonetheless, due to the ceiling effect in their improvement, it is unclear whether Japanese children improved their integrated processing of visual and auditory information.